Something has gone horribly wrong
A strange thing happened tonight. At about 9 p.m. tonight, everyone in the newsroom could be seen milling around the floor, mingling, watching TV. Not a soul was working on the paper. 9 p.m. typically signals the beginning of crunch time -- the final push toward deadline. A scene like this could only mean one thing. Something had gone horribly wrong. A server crashed had crashed with our database on it. We couldn't get into any pages to design them. Editors could open stories to edit them. So we mingled around the office for an hour while we waited for the problem to be fixed. Didn't matter if it was going to be one, two or three hours. When putting out a newspaper, you don't just call it a night if the computers are down. It just means you stay later. Luckily things had been going well up until the crash. We only missed an hour of work, but our last page was sent only half an hour after our original deadline. Not bad at all.
The whole situation got me thinking about all the newsroom disasters I've been involved in during my eight years in newspapers. I've decided I've had my share already, but I'm sure I'm not done with them. I thought I'd run through the ones I could think of right off hand. All these fall into the category of some sort of major work stoppage or hinderance to work that lasted more than a few minutes. And I'm not even going to count your basic frantic days when some news broke really late or we had to wait on some developing story like election nights. Some of you will remember some of these, feel free to chime in with your own.
Sophomore year of high school (Spring 2000): My first year on the high school newspaper staff is coming to a close as the staff works to put out its big senior issue. We arrived at the office early Saturday to discover that power is out to the entire school. The editor and his father promptly rent a gas-powered generator that we set up outside the office that gives us enough juice to power a few computers, the printer and a lamp. Power isn't restored until we return Monday for school, so we worked the whole weekend like that.
Sophomore year of college ('03-'04): Power goes on and off in the Don Morris Center so often that by the time you get the computer restarted and working on a page again, the power has flickered again. Makes making any progress on a page very difficult. Lots of banging and yelling heard coming from the editor's office.
Junior and senior years of college ('04-'06): More building power issues, except these weren't just surges. We're talking several hours of power outages. This category could be split into several crises if I simply remembered how many times this happened. I remember at least two times. Once junior year during a thunderstorm. Resulted in the hardcore staffers (you know who you are) hanging out around a dark office, lined up at the windows watching the storm until power was restored. Another time, and probably the longest outage I remember, resulted in the cancellation of Opinion writing class and more sitting around waiting for hours. It was also during these times that we discovered one of the more glaring weaknesses of the building.
Summer 2005:A former city commissioner of Miami walks into the lobby of The Miami Herald and fatally shoots himself a mere 5 floors below my feet on the sports copy desk. The building is locked down for a while as all the employees stay inside and continue working while we all wonder what's going on below.
I'm sure there's even more that I'm not even remembering. Maybe you recall some more. I'd love to have my memory jogged if I've left out your favorite. But as awful as some of these were to experience, I don't know that I'd trade any of them. Even thinking back on them now made me think of so much else that I didn't put on the list. Perhaps they'll make other lists on another day.
The whole situation got me thinking about all the newsroom disasters I've been involved in during my eight years in newspapers. I've decided I've had my share already, but I'm sure I'm not done with them. I thought I'd run through the ones I could think of right off hand. All these fall into the category of some sort of major work stoppage or hinderance to work that lasted more than a few minutes. And I'm not even going to count your basic frantic days when some news broke really late or we had to wait on some developing story like election nights. Some of you will remember some of these, feel free to chime in with your own.
Sophomore year of high school (Spring 2000): My first year on the high school newspaper staff is coming to a close as the staff works to put out its big senior issue. We arrived at the office early Saturday to discover that power is out to the entire school. The editor and his father promptly rent a gas-powered generator that we set up outside the office that gives us enough juice to power a few computers, the printer and a lamp. Power isn't restored until we return Monday for school, so we worked the whole weekend like that.
Sophomore year of college ('03-'04): Power goes on and off in the Don Morris Center so often that by the time you get the computer restarted and working on a page again, the power has flickered again. Makes making any progress on a page very difficult. Lots of banging and yelling heard coming from the editor's office.
Junior and senior years of college ('04-'06): More building power issues, except these weren't just surges. We're talking several hours of power outages. This category could be split into several crises if I simply remembered how many times this happened. I remember at least two times. Once junior year during a thunderstorm. Resulted in the hardcore staffers (you know who you are) hanging out around a dark office, lined up at the windows watching the storm until power was restored. Another time, and probably the longest outage I remember, resulted in the cancellation of Opinion writing class and more sitting around waiting for hours. It was also during these times that we discovered one of the more glaring weaknesses of the building.
Summer 2005:A former city commissioner of Miami walks into the lobby of The Miami Herald and fatally shoots himself a mere 5 floors below my feet on the sports copy desk. The building is locked down for a while as all the employees stay inside and continue working while we all wonder what's going on below.
I'm sure there's even more that I'm not even remembering. Maybe you recall some more. I'd love to have my memory jogged if I've left out your favorite. But as awful as some of these were to experience, I don't know that I'd trade any of them. Even thinking back on them now made me think of so much else that I didn't put on the list. Perhaps they'll make other lists on another day.
posted by Jonathan at
2:46 AM
3 Comments:
Remember the time we lost the Sing Song double-truck?
Or when you had to be quarantined during Sing Song/Lectureship?
Or the time we put pubic fire in a jump head? The bosses thought that was so unfunny at the time. :)
By
Lori, at 6:53 PM, May 19, 2007
ummm ... election night 2004 ... I remember a lot of pink and purple squiggly lines covering a map of the United States. But then again, I don't know if that really counts as a major disaster or just an editor ignoring the well-meant advice of his staff to finish the map more than five minutes before "Dun"ing the page.
By
Jaci, at 9:17 PM, May 20, 2007
Losing the Sing Song double-truck was pretty disastrous. At least for me. But I don't think I'd call it a newsroom crisis. More of a personal crisis.
Being quarantined during Saturday of Sing Song was probably a newsroom crisis. That was a rough day at the emergency clinic and the office.
I'm pretty certain Jaci has manufactured some memory of election night 2004. Sure, it was nuts. And getting the text wrap around the map was a nightmare. But I recall no such "well-meant advice" from the staff that I ignored. I do remember several staff members trying to get that text wrap to work around the map and failing before the editor had to work his magic on it. I maintain that election night 2004 went just fine. We did, in fact, have the most up to date information out of any newspaper in town the next day.
By
Jonathan, at 1:48 AM, May 21, 2007
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